Emtek, the company BlackBerry partnered with in 2016, announced today that it will officially shut down the consumer version of BlackBerry Messenger next month.

A new messaging app for iOS users to take its place is on the way.

Emtek announced that it will shut down the consumer version of BlackBerry Messenger on May 31st. The company says that while it tried make BBM a reality in 2019, users have moved on to other platforms:

"The technology industry however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on," Emtec said. "Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on."

BBM will continue to operate up to 31st May 2019, after which time the BBM application will stop working.

Photos, videos and files shared through BBM is available for download directly from the BBM application prior to closing the service. However,
your contacts and feeds cannot be exported from the BBM application.

BlackBerry is pushing users towards its BBMe service, which is essentially BlackBerry Messenger for enterprise users. The BBMe app is available now on Android, and Emtek is also working on an iOS client as well.